"Anyhow, I am glad you are back, David," his father said.

"You are forty-five, and though I don't say it would not have been
better if you had remained here from the first, you have learnt many
things you would not have learnt here. You know just the sort of
things that masters of ships require, and what canvas and cables and
cordage will suit their wants. Besides, customers like to talk with
men of their own way of thinking, and sailors more, I think, than
other men. You know, too, most of the captains who sail up the
Mediterranean, and may be able to bring fresh custom into the shop.
Therefore, do not think that you will be of no use to me. As to your
wife and child, there is plenty of room for them as well as for you,
and it will be better for them here, with you always at hand, than it
would be for them to remain over at Rotherhithe and only to see you
after the shutters are up."

Eight years later Captain Dave, as he was always called, became sole
owner of the house and business. A year after he did so he was
lamenting to a friend the trouble that he had with his accounts.

"My father always kept that part of the business in his own hands,"
he said, "and I find it a mighty heavy burden. Beyond checking a bill
of lading, or reading the marks on the bales and boxes, I never had
occasion to read or write for twenty years, and there has not been
much more of it for the last fifteen; and although I was a smart
scholar enough in my young days, my fingers are stiff with hauling at
ropes and using the marling-spike, and my eyes are not so clear as
they used to be, and it is no slight toil and labour to me to make up
an account for goods sold. John Wilkes, my head shopman, is a handy
fellow; he was my boatswain in the _Kate_, and I took him on when we